Game 2 (OT) - May 8, 2003
Pistons 104, Sixers 97

Brown

"Derrick (Coleman) had a pretty good look, and we missed the jumpshot late, and they made the plays. And as a result, they got the win."

On being surprised that Iverson missed key free throws late in fourth quarter
" I mean things like that happen, but yeah. I want him on the line. I mean we made a great defensive play. We were talking about switching a late pick and roll, and he made a great steal. But it got down late in the game, and we had a lot of guys hiding. Even with that, Aaron McKie had a pretty good look to tie the game up. It just game down to them making plays. I felt bad for Eric Snow. He had the ball in his hands so much of the time late in the clock. He’s got no explosion and no lift, and I kept telling guys when he gets the ball with 10-12 seconds, you’ve got to set screens and get people available…and I couldn’t find anybody available."

On his concern about team’s playoff status
"I mean we had the game won, in playoffs that’s tough. Last year, we had a big game in Boston won. Not having the home court it puts you in jeopardy, but we came in here and competed. We got down eight (points) in regulation, and came back and had the game won….didn’t get it done. And made some plays to give us a chance to win. Hopefully we’ll take care of our home court and figure out a way (to win). I thought their whole team played great. They got off to a great start. Jon Barry gave them an unbelievable lift, but the way that Clifford (Robinson) and Hamilton (Richard) started I thought was a big factor for them and gave them a lot of confidence."

Iverson

“It’s a bad feeling. I had an opportunity to put up them away but I failed to do it. I just let my teammates down in that situation. As a player those are the situations you want to be put in, unfortunately I didn’t come through."

On Chucky’s play
"It’s not a surprise because it’s playoffs time and guys are going to step up and play basketball. They guys that are out on the basketball court are out there for a reason. They just don’t drag guys off the street and put them on NBA rosters. Guys work hard for this all their lives to get this far and you have to have respect for everybody in the NBA regardless of if he’s the twelfth man on the bench. I’m not surprised about how he played. I played with Chucky in the World University Games in college and I know what type of player he is. I know what he can do out there on the basketball court. We have to win games at home. We have to win the first one, try to get the second one and come back here and steal one. You just have to take it one game at a time. The way I feel is that this game can’t come fast enough seeing that we had an opportunity to win. I had an opportunity to put them away and I couldn’t do it. I have a bad taste in my mouth right now. I’ll take the blame for this one because we did enough to win. I just didn’t do enough. If I’d made one or two free throws we’d be going home happy. My guys did everything they had to do to give us an opportunity to win the basketball game. I really think it came down to free throws. We had an opportunity to win the basketball game but I just didn’t take advantage of it.”

Snow

“He (Prince) went to four years of college and he’s shown that he can play. He has a good group of guys over there. I know Michael Curry and he plays against him every day in practice so I know he’s getting better throughout the season. He’s playing with a great deal of confidence right now and they have confidence in him. Whenever you have those, most of these guys in this league are talented to make plays. I think our emotions carried over. They were excited because they tied it up and we were down because they tied it up. The first couple of minutes we were playing like we were upset that we were in overtime. They took advantage of it and jumped out to a quick lead and we were playing catch up. We have to come out and realize that whatever happened in the first four quarters is over. It became a five-minute game and they beat us in the five-minute game.”

Van Horn

“I don’t think we were over confident and thought we had the game won. The game is not over until it’s over. They made some big plays down the stretch of the game. Hopefully our home court will help us as much as their home court helped them. Their crowd really got behind them, supported them, and really propelled them to this win tonight."

On guarding Tayshaun Prince
We’ll have to look at the film and try to see what mistakes we made and try to help out the guy guarding him. I think he was doing a good job of passing out the double teams as well. We’re going to have to make some adjustments in order to shut him down next game because he was a big factor tonight. I thought we didn’t execute our offense toward the end of the game. We didn’t execute well. I think that was the main problem. I was surprised that they went to him (Tayshaun Prince) as much as they did in crunch time. He was playing well.”

Carlisle

"First of all, our crowd was really spectacular at the Palace. Just great energy, and it really helped us out. I’ve got to believe that the noise in there had something to do with Iverson missing those two free throws, because that was a very unlikely scenario. All the guys really stepped up, starting with Tayshaun Prince who was absolutely a huge factor in the game, particularly in overtime. Jon Barry, whose minutes have been somewhat sporadic, was ready to play at a moments notice. He gave us a huge dose of energy in the fourth quarter when we were faltering a little bit. Chucky Atkins who has kept himself ready to play all year, comes in and scores 23 points and does a really terrific job of carrying us at the point position. Of course, we had a lot of guys that played well. The usual guys, Ben (Wallace) and Cliff (Robinson) played great defensively. And Rip (Hamilton) was solid again. My hat goes off to the guys that have stayed on alert, stayed ready and not complained about not getting their normal minutes. Those guys really stepped up tonight and helped to get a victory."

On Tayshaun Prince
"You know how they say that long distance runners have a really low heart rate, like in the 30’s or 40’s. This guy’s got a heart rate that might be in the 20’s. He’s so calm. It’s been amazing what he’s done in the last week to ten days. It’s a tribute to Joe Dumar’s drafting ability, to take this guy with the 23rd pick. You’ve got to give Tayshaun all the credit. He seized the opportunity when it was presented to him, and he continues to deliver, and it’s been great to see. I am a huge fan of his."

Atkins

"We wanted to come out here and show a lot of people how well we can play as a team and it’s hard when a guy like Chauncey Billups goes down. We weren’t going to let down until we won the game. We got a great contribution from everybody. Everybody that played, played great. Jon Barry came in during the third quarter and brought a lot of energy, as well as in the fourth quarter and in overtime and Tayshaun Prince was the man. I’ve been watching him all year during practice and I knew he was going to succeed. It was just a matter of him getting his opportunity. He works hard and even though he wasn’t getting an opportunity to play, he continued to work hard. This guy is going to be putting on a show here for a long time."

Barry

"That was a great team effort and it’s fun to be up 2-0 going to Philly. I actually missed my first shot; it was a little runner at the end of the third quarter, then I hit some threes in the fourth. When you are on the bench, that’s the way it is. You never know when you are going to go in. If Rip (Richard Hamilton) gets two fouls in the first two minutes of the game, I could be in. So you get used to that. You have to be ready at any time and after not playing in the first half (tonight), I really didn’t think I was going to play at all. Usually the rotation is pretty much set after the first half. It was nice to get the call and actually, coach ran my one play that (is for me) during my two years here as a Piston. We ran it and I got that three in the corner to start the fourth. Once I made that, he (Rick Carlisle) let me stay in there and I was able to get some stuff going. I appreciate the play call and there was no way I was going to miss that one; I knew I was sitting down if it didn’t go in."

Curry

"I just like the fact that we are playing hard and incredibly unselfish. All we have done so far is take care of our home court. Philly is going to try to take advantage of being at home. I told the guys to just focus on one game at a time so even though we have a back-to-back coming up, we will just focus on Saturday’s game as of now. We are going to go to work tomorrow to get prepared so we can come away with a win on Saturday."

Prince

“I’ve been playing for a long time. I know a lot of people would say that I wouldn’t adjust to the playoffs this fast but I’ve gotten a lot of experience over the years in college. Before that, just playing against some of the toughest competition in the country got me prepared for these types of situations. This was a situation where the team needed me. Obviously I’ve been playing a lot of minutes lately so I’ve got to bring something. I’ve been sitting there (on the bench) just visualizing things and evaluating what’s going on on the court. When you haven’t played all season you just get this hungriness inside you that when you get on the court you want to bring something to the team. In the first series it was a matter of playing tough defense and bringing a little offense. This series I have to do a little bit of both. The confidence is good, we just have to continue to build on it. The energy and effort has been there the last couple of games. In the second half we kind of got sluggish there an they Philly got back in the game. They’re (Philadelphia) a hard fighting team and they’re going to come back. It was big for us to come back and get this win and we just have to go down there and play the same way. Chauncey is a big threat for us. We struggled without him tonight. Chucky did a great job tonight, he stepped up big tonight.”

Robinson

"The only thing we did was take care of our business at home. (Philly) is a very powerful team right there and we know that in Philly, they are going to come out and try to get even the next two games. We are excited about the position we are in; we just can’t let the opportunity slip away."